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Peter Meso jliegle@cis.gsu.edu Dept. of CIS, Georgia State University Atlanta, GA, 30319, USA
Abstract
In this paper we explore how one aspect of virtual computing the virtual lab effectively addresses many of the challenges of teaching web application development. Based on a case study at a large south-eastern university, we begin by providing a description of the technical resources needed to teach such a course. We then briefly describe the shortcomings of previous approaches for providing a suitable environment, followed by a description of the recently implemented virtual lab approach. Thereafter, we report results of a survey that asked students exposed to this environment about heir experience and perception of the virtual lab. The paper concludes with a discussion on the benefits, drawbacks, and lessons learned from the virtual lab approach
Keywords: virtual lab, web design, computer programming 1. INTRODUCTION The ongoing evolution of information technology has a direct bearing on the nature of instruction provided to business students, in particular within the computing and information sciences. The teaching of courses in this field requires the use of definite computing technologies either within a laboratory setting or individually outside of the classroom (Liegle and Madey, 2003). The perception that students have about the effectiveness of the instructor and the course are also influenced by students perception of and satisfaction with the technology used (Meso and Liegle, 2003, 2005). These perceptions have a direct bearing on the instructors evaluation by students evaluations that are heavily relied upon at most institutions to assess the teaching effectiveness of instructors (Liegle and Johnson, 2003). Technologies that simplify the teaching of IT enhance pedagogical quality.. In the case of application development, the complexity of the technology, or its cumbersomeness, mitigates the students ability to grasp and understand the core body of knowledge being disseminated in the course. This is due to the fact that the computing environment of application development, in particular for the web, typically involves a)
System administration is made much easier: Each semester, the original template is used to re-create the class accounts by simply cloning it Both the students and the instructor have full administrative rights and therefore do not have to wait for tech support Should an account become corrupted, only the project files need to be saved while the workstation is recloned
3. EVALUATION OF THE VIRTUAL LAB The virtual lab was installed and tested during the spring 2005 semester, and two faculty members were given access to a small number of VWS to allow them to learn the system, configure template workstations for their respective courses, and write instructions for students. During the summer 2005 semester, these two faculty members were assigned a total of 25 virtual workstations for use in their three web development and systems design courses. Toward the end of the semester, the primary question became: how effective is the VL setup as a pedagogical resource for application development. To address this question, we administered a survey based on the theory of TAMs (Technology Acceptance Model) key efficacy constructs: ease of use and usefulness (See Figure 1) (Gallivan, 2001; Chircu et a., 2000; Straub et al., 1997).
Within the context of an IT course, we expect that students will be attracted to a technology that is easy to use and directly relevant to the course requirement tasks that they must complete, or to a technology that they perceive as bearing these traits. Therefore, assessing the reactions of students toward a particular technology can determine the effectiveness of that technology as a pedagogical tool for the course in question (Meso and Liegle, 2005). In past TAM studies, the ease of use and usefulness variables have been operationalized as either perceived or actual measures (Davis, 1989; Deane, Podd, and Henderson, 1998; Henderson and Divett, 2003; Szajna, 1996;). Perceived measures have been more frequently employed than actual measures (Deane, Podd, and Henderson, 1998) and are said to be appropriate in situations where users have yet to use the technology, in other words, pre-implementation (Deane, Podd, and Henderson, 1998). Therefore, we selected to use perceived measures in this study. TAM as a tool is designed to evaluate a technology in isolation. However, based on preliminary observations and past experience with teaching this type of course, we expect a number of factors to have an influence on a students perception of the usefulness and ease of use of the VL. In particular, some students would have successfully installed a web-server at home or on their laptop, while others would fail to do so for various reasons. Anecdotal experience from past semesters pointed to the expectation that the latter type of students would not be able to complete individual assignments and would heavily rely on teammates for group assignments. We expect that students who were unable to install a web server would find the virtual lab particularly useful and perceive it as being easy to use. On the other hand, students with their own web
Acceptance
Model
TAM has been used to explain the selection of an IT tool or technology to support the teaching of a technical IT course (Meso and Liegle, 2005) and to compare particular
VL easy to use for individual exercises VL easy to use group projects for
Table1: Mean and Standard Deviation of questions 16-19. While these results could be interpreted as marginal, one has to consider that currently there are only a small number of virtual machines available per section, meaning that not every student has his/her own virtual machine. Additionally, they are configured that they do not support multiple concurrent logins, which limits their use for group-projects in that only one person can be logged in at the same time. Further, the mean scores were all above 3 (neutral) and mostly leaning towards 4 (agree) indicating that students felt that the virtual computers were easy to use or very useful re-
For those students that have a web server running on their personal computer, programming experience had no real influence on their perception of the VL. However, programming experience significantly impacted the perception for those students that had no running web server at home. These results indicate that the more programming experience a subject had, the more they appreciated the VL. We interpret that as that novice students may not have had the knowledge to take advantage of the VL.
Dependent variable # 16 17 18 19 Question ease-of-use (in-class) ease-of-use (group work) usefulness (in-class) usefulness (group work)
Model strength r2 (p) 5.66 (.093) .716 (.024) .745 (.009) 0.626 (.049) * ** ** **
Coefficients of independent variables PExp. 5.526 (.005)** 5.292 (0.002)** 6.226 (.000) ** 5.381 (.004) ** WSxPExpy# -5.466 (.006)** -5.345 (.002)** -6.152 (.000) ** -5.459 (.004) **
WS
-0.640 (.224) -.524 (.242) -.474 (.239) -.268 (.571)
WSxComp#
3.746 (.012)** 3.370 (.010)** 3.860 (.002) ** 2.906 (.028) **
Comp
-3.241 (.009)** -3.823 (.004)** -4.193 (.002) ** -2.994 (.013)**
Table 2 :
Legend:PExpy (PROGY): Programming experience in years WS (RUN): True/False whether subject has personal web server Comp (RAM): Power of subjects computer in MB of RAM #: Interaction effect variables
Has personal web server E = .5C -.6 E = -.4C - .5 U = - .3C -.5 U = -.1 C -.1 P - .3 Has no personal webserver E = 5.5 Pexp 3.2 C E = 5.3 Pexp -3.8 C U = 6.2 Pexp 4.2 C U = 5.4 Pexp 3.0 C
a running personal web server, and programming experience have a significant influence on the perception of the students. A limitation of this study was that it was conducted over a compressed time period (summer semester) with a small number of students, resulting in very few data points. Additionally, the limited use per subject of the virtual computers due to the fact that only a small number of virtual workstations were available for the two sections may have affected the power of the results. Informal feedback from the students and the fact that they were able to do in-class exercises as well as group work showed that the system worked. Those who could use them, i.e. students with programming experience, in particular appreciated the virtual computers. In addition, those students who had less sophisticated computers at home and/or did not have a computer with IIS installed at all, appreciated the virtual computers and found them easy to use and useful. Since easy of use and usefulness are predictor variables for technology acceptance, we feel confident that the virtual servers will be a huge success. The next step is to evaluate the system in longer-term studies with larger number of students to see how it performs under load. In addition, other system features such as the ability to install limited number of copies of special software to comply with
Table 3: Regression formulae with WS being either 0 or 1 (rounded) The results with respect to computing power were surprising, since we expected this to have no effect for students who do not have a running web server. Yet, in all four regressions, the computing power strongly and negatively influenced the students perception of the VL. Our interpretation here is that students tended to compare the performance of the VL to that of their personal computers. Therefore, students with powerful computers, perceiving the VWS as running more slowly than their personal computers, were inclined to rate the VL relatively lower. Those having slow personal computers, on the other hand, tended to rank it relatively higher, for the same reason. This explains the negative directionality of the influence of computer power on students perception. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH Our initial assessment of the virtual lab is that it was a success. Students on average found it to be useful (3.75 out of 5) and easy to use (3.45 out of 5). The results, though preliminary, also indicate that the power of the personal computer, presence of
Appendix VIRTUAL INTERNET SERVER SURVEY Participation in this survey is voluntary and anonymous. The results of this survey will only be published in summary form and be used to improve the teaching at GSU. Your Background: Standing: Graduate Undergraduate Major: CIS(major/concentration/related) Other: _____________________ Gender: Male Female Other Years of IT related work experience: _______ Years of programming experience: _______ Years of web-design experience: _______ Please rate your PRIOR programming experience [1= none, 2 little, 3 some 4 proficient, 5 expert, 6 N/A] ___ with Visual Studio ___ prior experience with virtual labs ___ ASP.NET Languages: ___ Java, ___ C++, ___ VB, Any Comments:
___ C#
Please rate the Computer that you primarily use for programming assignments: Location: Amount of (i.e. 512 MB) PC at home RAM Memory Laptop PC at work University Lab other:
Processor type and speed (i.e. Intel Celeron 2.4 Mhz) (be as specific as you can. If unknown, specify age of computer or unkown) If your main computer is at home/office, how did you obtain VisualStudio.NET? Downloaded from Microsoft (Academic Alliance) Bought software Came already installed Other: _________________________________________________ Regarding your primary computer Who installed Visual Studio?: Who configured IIS to work with Visual Studio?: Who configured IIS/VS to work with .NET 1.1 ? Yourself 3rd party N/A
Please answer the following section if you obtained Visual Studio through the Academic Alliance download: Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Disagree Agree Accessing the download site was easy (ie finding site, getting password) My internet connection is reliable (in regards of data loss/timeouts) Downloading the software was easy Installation of the software was easy Configuring the software (i.e. IIS) was easy Learning how to use Visual Studio was easy Using Visual Studio was easy My computer was very responsive with IIS and Visual studio running at the same time It was easy to locate applications/files on my primary computer It was easy to use my primary computer for group work
N/A
Please answer the following section if you have used the Virtual Servers as part of your inclass/homework experience Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly N/A Disagree Agree Connection to the virtual lab is easy (i.e.mstsc) My internet connection was reliable (in regards of data loss/timeouts) The virtual lab computer was very responsive with IIS and VStudio running at the same time It was easy to locate applications/files on the Virtual Computer It was easy to upload/download data from the Virtual computer It was easy to use the virtual computer for in-class exercises It was easy to use the virtual computer for group projects The virtual server is very useful for inclass exercises The virtual server is very useful for group projects